


Interlude: seek the manor grounds anew

by MaliciousVegetarian



Series: Into the Jaskierverse [22]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Child Neglect, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Siblings, but still there so be safe!, in the past and only hinted at
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27452899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciousVegetarian/pseuds/MaliciousVegetarian
Summary: Jaskier comes to a world where his family is very, very different.
Series: Into the Jaskierverse [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895545
Comments: 12
Kudos: 98





	Interlude: seek the manor grounds anew

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my word this is so bad. Apologies to literally everyone else in ItJ, their works are miles better than this.
> 
> Warnings for implied past child abuse and neglect.
> 
> Title from Wolf Count by the Mountain Goats

The  
in front of Jaskier isn't him, exactly.

It's almost him. The face is the same, if a little longer and with a too-sharp nose. And the hair falls the same way, despite being bright blonde. The hand clasped around a lute strap is exactly the same, and the doublet is familiar, although the hat - velvet with a feather in it - is not.

Perhaps most unsettling of all, the almost-him doesn't seem surprised by his not-quite doppelganger. Instead, he opened his arms, smiling. “Jaskier! It’s good to see you again, I thought you’d be arriving later.”

Jaskier trys to hold back panic. This man is a stranger, but then, trying to lie hadn’t gone very well in the world with Eskel and Ashwood. Instinctively, he takes a step back.

The man’s eyes narrow. They're a bright cornflower blue, just a shade more purple than Jaskier’s own. Something about it is unnerving - the nose issn’t his, but it is familiar, where had he seen it before? Somewhere he should know.

“Are you alright, Jaski?” 

Jaskier breathes as deeply as he can, trying to calm his racing heart. He glances around, trying to ground himself. A wide dirt road cuts between farm fields, muddy from rain, with deep holes where passers by had gone before. It leads into a denser collection of buildings, gathering closer and closer together, until, over the hill, there's a tiny piece of Lettenhove, sticking up against the horizon. Jaskier shivers.

“I’m - you’re -” He can still feel the pull of the portal on him.

The other man’s face furrows further. “Now I know something’s wrong, you never let me call you Jaski.”

“I’m not -” Jaskier can’t do this, he can’t be here right now, for once he wishes he could portal away right then. He doesn’t want to be here any more.

Something in his face must snap something in the other man, because he suddenly moves forwards. Jaskier steps back again, and when did he start shaking?

“Jaskier, it’s alright. Come on, it’s just me.” 

The man’s voice is gentle, soothing him the way he’s heard Geralt soothe Roach, and suddenly Jaskier hates it. What right does this stranger have to try to comfort him? All he wants, in that moment, is Geralt, Ciri, hell, he’ll settle for Yennefer. He wants something really familiar, something that’s not pretending to be his.

There’s a hand on his shoulder, and he freezes under the touch. “C’mon, Jaski. Let’s go home, alright? Whatever’s happened, we can work it out there.”

Jaskier shakes his head, the motion rough and jerky. Then, from behind them, there’s a call.

“Julek! Come on, Jaskier’s here!”

The hand on Jaskier’s shoulder goes suddenly stiff. The other man whips around. On the top of the nearest hill, standing ankle deep in mud, is another man with a slightly unnerving face, except this time Jaskier realizes what it is. The stranger looks like his mother.

What on earth is this world.

The man in front of him has gone pale, and goes paler when another version of Jaskier steps up beside the other man. In an instant, he’s whirled around and pulled a small dagger from - Jaskier’s not sure where, actually - and holds it to his throat.

“What are you doing wearing my little brother’s face?”

“I don’t - listen, I’m not from this world.” He feels panic creeping in, taking over, growing around him like vines and suffocating him.

“And why should I believe that over you being a doppler of some kind?”

Then the knife is being removed from his throat. “Easy, Julek. Look, you’ve scared the shit out of him.”

The man who looks like his mother has one hand on the tall man’s arm, clearly having just pulled it back.

“What are you two talking about?” Jaskier’s own voice says. And then there he is, looking slightly younger than Jaskier feels, but still clearly him, close enough that it’s not surprising the tall man was confused.

“We seem to have found a doppler,” the one who looks like his mother replies jovially, seemingly unbothered by the situation.

“I’m not a doppler,” Jaskier says, thinking too late that that might be safer than being an interdimensional traveler. He’s already blown his cover, anyways.

“Then what exactly are you? A long lost fifth brother?”

Other-Jaskier’s voice is joking, but Jaskier’s thoughts are racing ahead. So that’s the difference with this world. He only has one sister, Jagoda. The three of them must be siblings, so that means there’s another one lurking around somewhere.

“I’m from - I’m from a different world. I - you have magic here? Chaos?”

Julian looks confused. “Of course.”

“And there are portals?” 

He nods again.

“So it’s those, but between worlds.”

“Fascinating,” the one who looks like Jaskier’s mother says. “So you’ve actually traveled across universes?

“Different worlds?” the other Jaskier asks. “Different from ours, I mean, but similar?”

The other two, his brothers, look at him, and he shrugs. “He didn’t seem to recognize us.”

“I don’t,” Jaskier says. “I have no idea who you are.”

The other Jaskier points at the tall one, then the mother faced one. “Julian Pankratz. Jacenty Pankratz.” Then he points to himself. “Jaskier Pankratz.”

“Your parents actually named you Jaskier?” Jaskier’s voice comes out more surprised than he realized it would. To his surprise, all three of them laugh.

“Our parents started to give up on names around baby number three,” Julian answers. “Our youngest brother is named Dandelion.”

“Speaking of,” Jacenty says. “I wonder where he is.”

“Knowing the little asshole, probably sitting pretty at home making jokes about how late we are,” the other Jaskier (he’s going to have figure out a better way to refer to him, since Julian is out) says.

Julian smiles. “Do you think he brought a witcher with him?”

Jacenty shrugs. “Most likely. Why?”

“Because I figure if our well-traveled friend is telling the truth, they’re our best bet to figure out what’s going on.”

“What is going on,” other Jaskier asks. “You never told us what we were doing here.”

“It’s rather a long story,” Jaskier admits. “There was this mage, Stregobor -”

Julian hisses. “We know him. He had a nasty run in with my friend Eric.”

“One of your witchers?”

“Yes, actually.” Other Jaskier looks curious. Jaskier nods.

“My friend Geralt, a witcher in our world, had a run in as well.”

“We know a Geralt,” Jacenty says. “But I don’t think he was born when Blaviken happened.”

This is all very interesting, and Jaskier is trying to fit the pieces together. He’ll have to try to figure this out. After all, he has nothing better to do.

Objective set, he looks around at the three brothers. “Anyways, Stregobor created a monster. In trying to get away from it, Ciri - do you know Ciri? Tried to get me away from it, but the portal collapsed.”

“Ciri?” Julian asks. “Gordon’s child surprise?”

“Technically she’s Eric’s,” Jacenty points out. “And Roger was the one who found her as a child.”

Julian rolls his eyes. “All our witchers’ child surprise, I suppose.”

_Roger?_

“Anyways,” Jacenty says. “We should go home, we’re expected.”

“Are we bringing him with us?” Other Jaskier asks, casually gesturing over his shoulder at Jaskier.

Jacenty shrugs. “Is there any reason _not_ to take him?”

Jaskier doesn’t particularly enjoy being talked about this like a stray cat the brothers found on the road, but he decides it’s wiser not to say anything.

He thinks a little longingly of the last world, of the time he had spent relaxing with Yennefer. It had been a break from this horrible, painful slog, and he had appreciated it more than he knew how to express. But now, of course, he had once more been thrown into the thick of it. At least this world wasn’t falling apart and no one seemed set to torture him again.

He hasn’t been back to his version of Lettenhove in years, but if it’s anything like this one, it’s eerily unchanged. The buildings still stand in strange rows, equal in width if not in height. The town proper isn’t large, but it is slightly fancier than the buildings on the outskirts. All the building seem to be variations on the same color, a gradient of earthy browns.

The manor house isn’t in the small town proper, that would be far too common of it. Or at least that’s how Jaskier always viewed it. Instead, it sits about a half a mile outside of it, on a slight rise where the town is visible. Jaskier used to go there on clear mornings and watch the people, small as ants, go about their day while he wrote songs in his head. Like the town, it’s unchanged, seeming to sit untouchable in the growing gloam.

There’s an older man at the door, who nods at them as they enter. Jaskier recognizes him moments before the man seems to notice there’s two of them. Before he can say anything, Julian waves his hand. “Rade, this is our friend Felix. Unfortunately we were forced to get a rather unsubtle glamour, but at least it’s a good one, eh?”

The man just shrugs. “Another one of your witchers?”

Julian winks dramatically.

The house is mostly emtpty, but as they walk deeper into it, Jaskier realizes it is reverberating with sound in a way he can never remember it having done when he was a child. There’s laughter and music coming from the main banquet room his parents always gathered in. As they get closer, he can hear that the singer’s voice is clear, and not that different from his own.

When he enters the room, he has to draw back at the sight of his own parents, older than he remembers, chatting to each other as a young man dressed in bright purple plays a lute. The three of them are so absorbed in music and conversation that it takes them a few minutes to look up and notice the new arrivals.

“Boys!” Jaskier’s father, the viscount of Lettenhove, calls out, then stops as he registers the presence of two Jaskiers. “What on earth is going on?”

Something about his father’s voice sounds warmer, more welcoming than Jaskier remembers it ever being. It fills the hall, where as a child he remembers having to strain to hear it from the other end of the massive table.

“This is -” Julian says, and trails off.

“What are you doing?” Other Jaskier hisses. “C’mon, didn’t you think up a story?”

“I was working on one,” Julian whispers back.

“We are _bards_ ,” Other Jaskier grits out. “Stories are supposed to be our bread and butter.”

“Well, do you want to try?”

Other Jaskier is suspiciously silent after that.

“This is Jaskier, but from another world,” Jacenty says, gesturing to Jaskier. “He is looking for a mage friend of his, and found himself here by mistake. We, of course, invited him back to the manor for the night, before he goes on his way.”

The lute player, who Jaskier assumes is Dandelion, has put down his instrument and is watching the scene with interest. The other two brothers are looking at Jacenty with no small amount of embarrassment. 

“Well then,” Jaskier’s mother says, and her voice is as silky smooth as ever, but there’s a more musical lilt to it. Jaskier wonders if the two of them have always been like this here, or if this is what he’d find if he went back home. If he ever gets back home. “Welcome. What shall we call you?”

“Buttercup,” Julian butts in.

“That’ll do,” their mother smiles. “Welcome, Buttercup, or should I say welcome back?”

Her words send a chill down Jaskier’s - Buttercup’s - spine. There’s something about being here that makes him feel, yet again, like he’s intruding in his own home, except now there’s a solid reason for it - he is.

And then, yet again, he’s gone.


End file.
